Author's Note: It's been a dog's age since I updated these 100 ways, so it's about time, don't you think? I hope you enjoy these two new ones!

Way 62

"Wash your car weekly."

He'd never seen anything as stunning as Tin-Tin…until now. Tin-Tin in a brand-new 2030 Aston Martin Superlative. Alan found himself actually salivating until he remembered he lived on an island in the middle of the South Pacific, and was rarely away from it for more than a day or two at a time.

When the heck would he drive this amazing, unbelievable, perfect new car?

Tin-Tin batted her eyes at him from the driver's seat, then slid seductively across to the passenger seat. He suddenly remembered that she was wearing a very, very short skirt. Alan's mouth went from Niagara Falls to Sahara Desert in two nanoseconds. Sweat broke out at the base of his skull. He hated how he sweated; how the bottom fifth of his hair at the nape of his neck would be soaked within seconds.

She leaned down and waggled her fingers at him through the open driver's side window, and he suddenly wondered whether the purr was coming from her or the engine.

"Well, that's it, Mr. Tracy, she's all yours."

Alan shook Preston Peters' hand without taking his eyes from the woman waiting for him to get into the car. "Thanks." His voice sounded far away even to him.

"Fantastic accessory you have there."

He blinked, did a double-take and started to feel his anger rise. "Who are you calling an accessory?"

The salesman paled. "I meant the spoiler you ordered it with."

Oops. Alan and his quick temper. Tin-Tin was always giving him grief about it. As if she had any room to talk. "Oh. Right. Well, be seeing you."

He had no idea if Peters nodded or waved or breathed a sigh of relief or what, and he didn't really care. The guy had made a $40,000 commission off the youngest Tracy, so he would be just fine.

Alan slid into the driver's seat, put his hands on the wheel and made the mistake of eye contact with Tin-Tin.

"Shall we…see what she's got?" Tin-Tin teased.

Dry mouth again. He really needed mints. Or "Mmph!"

Her lips covered his and for a moment he forgot they were still in the Aston Martin dealer's lot. He managed to push her away enough to remind her of that fact and she practically ordered him to the family's penthouse in Manhattan, then as soon as he was on the road and had shifted to 3rd gear, she suggested somewhere else entirely.

Wherever that parking garage was, because he really hadn't any memory of which turns he'd taken, which street they'd wound up on or how they'd gotten up to the top, open floor of an eighteen-story car park, it was the holy place where Alan Tracy's brand-new car was christened, where his brand-new wife conceived and where he realized he was going to have to worry more about cleaning the inside of the car than the outside, if Tin-Tin's libido kept up at this pace.

Not that he was complaining.

Nor, apparently, was the car, which purred all the way to the penthouse where the valet took the keys as Alan helped the beautiful young Mrs. Tracy out of the car. She turned to look at the metallic blood-red baby as the valet entered the driver's side to take it away.

"Oh, dear, we've already got a spot," she lamented, pointing to a smudge near the passenger door handle.

Alan grinned. Normally he would be losing his mind, pulling his hanky out of his jacket pocket and buffing the heck out of the car with her standing there curbside, booted foot tapping away impatiently. But not tonight. Yes, the new car had been his wedding present to himself. Yes, he and Tin-Tin had just been married the day before in Kansas, were stopping over in New York at the penthouse for one night and then leaving tomorrow for Italy. Yes, Alan normally would've wanted to race that car up and down every road in New York, New Jersey and wherever else he could get to all night long no matter what Tin-Tin wanted.

But marriage had changed Alan. Tin-Tin was his priority now…her happiness, her well-being and her love were what he craved and lived for.

He vowed, as he escorted his impeccably dressed, glowing and perfect wife toward the front door, that he would not insist upon washing this vehicle every day of its use the same as he had with all the previous models he'd owned.

In deference to the woman who apparently wanted to engage in yet more ravishing – not that he was complaining – Alan thought to himself, No, I'll wash it less often than every day.

She nibbled on his ear and he slammed her against the elevator wall, devouring her mouth under her giggling mock protest and melting body.

Once a week ought to do, was his thought as she dragged him out of the elevator, turned and stripped every article of clothing off in about three seconds flat, purse and all becoming a pile on the marble tile floor.

Maybe once a fortnight…

It was the last coherent thought he had for a while.

Way 63

"Have a spring cleaning month every year, and do one room at a time."

How Jeff hated Spring Cleaning Month. It had always been something Lucy insisted on, and Jeff reluctantly recalled how he seemed to always have a knack for being away working when that month rolled around, much to her chagrin and, at the time, his delight.

It was always March, and it was what his wife and kids had been working on while he'd been in Houston planning and plotting alongside the next generation of astronauts side-by-side to prepare for an unprecedented asteroid landing that NASA had been working on for more than a year.

He had been so far away when it had happened. Heavily pregnant, she'd had no idea the storm was going to be so bad there in Florida when she bundled their four kids into the family's minivan and headed for the store. She and the boys had been so busy with Spring Cleaning Month, first working through every single toy and scrap of clothing they owned and by the second week, had been elbows-deep mucking out the garage and storage shed out in the back yard.

Jeff hated the fact that so much of his recent work around that time was done in Houston. He really hated leaving her all alone that close to their fifth child's due date, but you can't change due dates for work projects and so he'd been finishing up as fast as he could. He was supposed to be on an afternoon flight on March 13th, but he missed that one.

Because he'd had to take an emergency one the day before he was slated to have flown home.

Floridians were used to hurricanes, and thunderstorms were a frequent way of life. But Lucy had been so busy with the spring cleaning that she hadn't been watching weather reports, the news or any television, for that matter. When she'd realized they were out of some very basic things – bread, milk, cereal, diapers – she'd just figured the skies were gray because of yet another Florida storm whipping up. It didn't matter because her boys needed stuff, so off she went.

But it hadn't been just another storm.

In the present, Jeff leaned back in his chair in his office as his mother scurried past with a feather duster in one hand and a bag of rags in the other. No matter that they had their expansive home professionally cleaned on a weekly basis; Ruth Tracy was nothing if not an elbow-grease kind of woman who preferred to look after some things herself.

He looked at the date on his desk calendar. It was March 1st. Alan's 30th birthday was 11 days away. So was the 30th anniversary of his beloved wife's death.

It didn't bring the debilitating pain it had for at least the first ten years…not anymore. It now brought only melancholia, memories piling up and blurring together to the point where he no longer really knew which were real and which were idealized remembrances of a woman he recalled as perfect in every way to assuage his guilt over not having been there when the hurricane blew the minivan off the road. Not having been there when his eldest delivered his youngest from their dying mother's womb while also trying to calm three younger brothers.

Not having been there to say good-bye.

Scott sauntered up to the desk, stood there for a few moments and silently seated himself in one of the chairs they'd set up across from it for the team meeting they'd be having in an hour or so.

"Everything good?" Scott asked.

Jeff made a couple clicks on his touch-mouse. The printer behind him whirred to life. "Yep. Just printing the schedule now."

"I think the new team we've put together will work out well."

"They couldn't be in better hands," Jeff nodded, making brief eye contact with his son, who was now the de facto leader of both International Rescue teams. "I'm tempted to start celebrating early."

Scott grinned and from seemingly nowhere, produced a bottle of Jack Daniels and two shot glasses.

Jeff was glad of it and held a hand out to take the first shot Scott poured. After the second, he placed the bottle on the desk as he rose to his feet and clinked his shot glass against his father's. "Cheers, Dad."

The liquid burned his throat briefly, warmed his chest and blossomed outward. He smiled gratefully as Scott gathered the evidence and prepared to depart.

"Thanks, Son."

"Anytime, Dad."

As Scott departed, Jeff turned to grab the papers off the printer behind him. He looked down at them and a grin spread across his face when he read the heading to Page 1: SPRING CLEANING ASSIGNMENTS.

The new members of International Rescue would wind up hating Spring Cleaning Month, too, for a whole host of different reasons.

And maybe one day, perhaps nearer Alan's 40th birthday, the sting would leave Jeff completely and he wouldn't dread March anymore.

Maybe.